Daily challenges!!! How the heck could anyone get all of these?!?
Challenges – for these, if you want to, ‘tag’ me (write @sambiology) somewhere on the observation – either in the notes or the comments, so I can see it!
Sunday, September 5
Observe some mammal tracks
- extra challenge: observe tracks or evidence of an organism that’s an insectivore
Monday, September 6
Make an observation of a species, and then look up the meaning of the scientific name (translate the Latin, look up the namesake of the species, or find out where the scientific name comes from).
- extra challenge: find two more organisms that are named after famous botanists. How many organisms can you find that are named after famous naturalists?
Tuesday, September 7
Observe a spider that has different sized or shaped eyes
- extra challenge: observe as many different spider species as you can today
Wednesday, September 8
Make a fungus observation with a spore print
- extra challenge: how many different fungi species can you find on this one day?
Thursday, September 9
Observe a bird that has a sense of smell
- extra challenge: observe two birds in different taxonomic families that have the ability to smell!
Friday, September 10
Document an insect that has the color purple
- extra challenge: find insects that have all of the 3 different primary colors (red, yellow, and blue)
Saturday, September 11
Document an invasive plant with the complete root system showing! (in other words, yank it out!)
- extra challenge: pile up lots and lots of invasive plants! How big can your pile be?!?
Huge props to anyone that can get several of these! :)
Comments
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How many challenges will you complete?!? :)
I take it the challenges are specific by day. Will try a few but no camera except my iPhone again after a mishap while photographing flower-eating wasps along the West Fork, They are out in large numbers on late bonesets and emerging goldenrods.
@cwd912nb -- yep, the challenges are by day (but honestly, that's ok if folks do different ones on each day -- just as long as they're challenged!). Most of them can be done via camera phone...although, it may be even MORE challenging! :)
@sambiology How Fun! I like how a few are fairly easy, but there’s some more challenging ones as well.
What do you mean by a spider with different shaped eyes?
Also, I didn’t know some birds couldn’t smell. I guess I assumed they all have pheromones and other scents, some could smell their food sources, and some could smell water (or the sea?). I would guess that vultures rely most on their smell.
I don’t know of any local purple insects. That would be a tough one! I’ll have to do some research.
And I have plenty of weeds to remove from my garden! Anyone is welcome to come by on Saturday to get your observations! 😂
Haha! Yep -- some of these are a bit more challenging. The spider eyes -- well... you'll just have to look super close at all of the spiders to tell (and I guess I should have said "different sized" instead of different "shaped" although, you may notice some relatively different shapes as you get eye-to-eye). :)
It'll be fun to see who can get which challenges. Hopefully they're challenging! :)
Spider eyes. Look for a brown recluse (relying on fiddleback) and take a picture of it. (Well, hopefully you won't find one in your house. Be careful if you find one although that's not likely.) Then take a picture of any other spider. I think that will give you spiders with different eye patterns. "A more definitive diagnostic feature is the eye pattern -- brown recluses have a semi-circular arrangement of six eyes (three groups of two) while most other spiders have 8 eyes. Seeing this feature requires a good quality hand lens." See https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef631. I don't think you actually have to observe the eye pattern or get a photo of it. A zoom lens carefully focused on the spider may show the eye patterns. And even if you don't see it yourself, you have it on good authority that they are different from most other spiders.
Ah ha! I have a feeling folks will stare into the eyes of spiders next week Tuesday (at least, I hope so!). :) See if you can find a single spider that has different sized eyes. Aaaaaand then look for spiders that have different patterns of eyes! Stare deep into the eyes of a spider (or lots of spiders). :)
(I did end up editing the challenge to say "sized or shaped")
Interesting, I was thinking something like a jumping spider that has larger forward facing eyes but smaller lateral eyes.
👁🕷👁
This will be us looking too closely at the spiders.
Can't start til tomorrow, but will give it my best to complete as many as I can
Sadly, I could not participate this year. My honey and I have been sick for 5 days, some type of stomach virus. Not fun!☹️
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